Peter Overend Watts

Peter Overend Watts (13 May 1947 – 22 January 2017) was an English bass guitar player and founding member of the 1970s rock band Mott the Hoople.

Watts was born in Yardley, Birmingham on 13 May 1947. He moved as a child to Worthing, Sussex, and then to Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, where he started learning guitar while at Ross Grammar School. His middle name, Overend (which initially he did not use), came from that of a family ancestor.

Watts began playing the guitar at the age of 13 and by 1965, he had switched to bass guitar, and became a professional musician alongside Mick Ralphs in a group, the Buddies, that played in German clubs. The group later became the Doc Thomas Group, and then Shakedown Sound, before finally changing their name to Silence and settling in London in 1969. The group then added singer Ian Hunter, became Mott the Hoople, and, taking the advice of manager Guy Stevens, Pete Watts adopted the stage name Overend Watts. Watts played bass in Mott the Hoople's seven albums released between 1969 and 1974, and sang his own composition "Born Late '58" included in the band's seventh album, The Hoople (1974).

Following the departure of Ian Hunter and Mick Ralphs from the band in 1974, the remaining members of Mott the Hoople recruited relative unknowns Ray Major, on guitar, and Nigel Benjamin, on vocals. The name was abbreviated to Mott and a further two albums, Drive On (1975) and Shouting and Pointing (1976), were recorded with this line-up, before Benjamin quit.

Watts continued, with Dale "Buffin" Griffin, Morgan Fisher and Ray Major, in the Mott successor British Lions, recruiting former Medicine Head member John Fiddler. They released the albums British Lions, which reached No. 83 in the US (1977), and Trouble with Women (1982). He later became a record producer, producing albums for artists including Hanoi Rocks and Dumb Blondes.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.